FAQ

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Tracking k-pop's musical trends to 2015 - how can k-pop improve?

Inquiring minds have noticed the lack of quality in current k-pop and wish to know the answer to the following question:

What
does Kpopalypse want to hear in k-pop? More importantly, will any of
it actually happen? Come on a journey with Kpopalypse as he explores
k-pop's musical trends and shows areas for future improvement!

Music fashion in the west goes in cycles. For example, the soundsofthe1980s were cool in the 80s, then in the 1990s the 1970ssoundsweretrendier, but by the late 2000s a lot of the 80s sounds had gainedpopularcurrencyagain. The 80s also had a revamped revival of 1950sthemed music, and around 1990 there was also a blues revival spearheaded by John Lee Hooker, who had his original recordings in the 1940s.
Korean pop is no different in that there are fashions that move
cyclically, however because Korean pop at the moment is moving and
developing very quickly due to the large quantities of material being
produced and very high levels of competition, phasing in and out of
trends is happening at a much quicker rate than in the west. Let's look
at some musical trends that have affected k-pop and how their influence
has waxed and waned over the years.

POSITIVELY-MOVING TRENDS IN 2015

HARD AUTOTUNE INDEX (HAI)

The
use of hard Autotune in k-pop peaked during k-pop's Golden Age (a few
years after it peaked in the west), with songs like Super Junior's "Sorry Sorry", T-ara's "Bo Peep Bo Peep" and most of 2NE1'searlyoutput
exploiting the effect heavily. However no sound fashion trend lasts
forever, and while Autotune sometimes does crop up in newer songs, it's
generally now considered to be "that sound that k-pop used a hell of a
lot a few years ago and doesn't really use much anymore". Kpopalypse
predicts that the use of hard Autotune will remain minimal
for the near future - newly-discovered effects tend to spend a few
years almost completely out of the sun after they've run past their
initial spike of popularity.

VOCALFAGGOTRY AGGREGATION GUIDE (VAG)

People
caring excessively about vocal technique died off during the start of
the Golden Age but then re-emerged as an equal-but-opposite reaction to
the excessive use of hard Autotune in k-pop - people developed a desire
to want to hear the "real voices" again (even though this "realness" is actually an illusion) and k-pop labels rushed to cater to the demand. Kpopalypse predicts that the vocalfaggotry trend will gradually decline
due to the same oversaturation that depopularised Autotune plus the
fact that Autotune's lack of popularity right now will make the need for
an equal-but-opposite musical trend redundant.

NEGATIVELY-MOVING TRENDS IN 2015

FLACCID ENNUI LABOURING CURRENT HIPHOP (FELCH)

Rap
music has been popular in Korea since the idol wave of the 1990s,
however as the rap audience has matured, their tastes have become
mellower as they turn to slower, softer songs less likely to cause
offence at tea parties or rattle their wheelchair spokes out of
position. This means that rappers wishing to retain their maturing core
audiences have softened their musical approach to suit. Kpopalypse
expects that the current hip-hop trend of soft-as-shit weaksauce
jazz/R&B infused limp nursey-rhyme beats in hip-hop will hold steady due to Korea's aging demographic offsetting any musical counter-trends.

YOLO EFFECT AND SWAG TRACKING (YEAST)

Horrible yoloswag trapturds in k-pop have been on the increase, largely thanks to highly influential artists like G-Dragon championing the style (which is odd behaviour for someone who supposedly likes Wu-Tang Clan but whatever). Kpopalypse predicts that more k-pop performers will leap on this bandwagon and that yoloswag will reach a peak
before (hopefully) dipping again in a few years time. This peak will
be helped along by the FELCH charted above, as a growing number of new
listeners bored by FELCH but also uneducated in the ways of whatactualproperhip-hopbeatssoundlike will consider ratchet yoloturds to be the equal-but-opposing option instead.

NEUTRAL TRENDS IN 2015

RETROGRADE IN MUSIC JAMS OR BACKINGS (RIMJOB)

There's
been a strong current of retro-themed songs in the k-pop landscape ever
since JYP proved that he could throw his sound back to 1960sgirlgroups and still create a hit. Secret, IU and TVXQ
all took the retro theme back to even earlier decades along with many
others and all achieved success, cementing the "retro concept" as a
viable option in k-pop. Kpopalypse predicts that while it will never be
the main focus of k-pop, this trend will continue at current levels.

SYNTHESISER PROLIFERATION ENTERING RECORDED MUSIC (SPERM)

After
heavy use of synthesisers and programming throughout the Golden Age, a
"real music" trend emerged, with the pendulum swinging back in favour of
"real" instrumentation. Of course, this trend is actually illusory in real terms
with the "real" sounds being largely also programmed, but the reason
for the apparent shift is that technology has improved to the point
where almost all instruments can be convincingly simulated now. The
pace of technological advancement gave k-pop engineers more options to
work with naturalistic sounds, however the popular synth noises are now
making a slight return and integrating into tracks alongside more
natural (but often synthesised) sonics, blurring the lines of what is
"real" from a listener's perspective. Kpopalypse predicts that
obviously electronic sounds will see a levelling out in popularity at roughly current levels.

So
that's enough about what's actually going on. What about the trends
that haven't hit Korean idol pop in a meaningful way yet, that
Kpopalypse would like to see happening more?

TRENDS THAT COULD USE MORE PRESENCE IN 2015

DISTORTED INSTRUMENTS CONQUERING KPOP (DICK)

Distorted guitars have been chugging away sneakily in the background of k-pop ever since the days of H.O.T
but the closest that k-pop has ever gotten to any kind of genuine heavy
metal takeover is when B.A.P debuted and looked like they might become
successful consistently working a hard rock/metal idol concept. Of
course this didn't happen because after their firstfewsongs their label insisted that they change things up a little and do some softcockrubbish
to appeal to Korea's pussbag demographic. Sure we've got Pritz now but
who knows if they'll stick with the metal thing consistently, and other
groups like KARA are really doing metal by stealth instead of openly
(using the same sonic layouts but without turning the guitars up all the
way).

SUSPENDED HARMONY IS TAKING HOLD OVER LARGELY EVERYTHING (SHITHOLE)

Suspended
harmony refers to the alternating use of dissonant and consonant
intervals in a harmonic motif to create tension and resolution in a
manner consistent with pre-Baroque era vocal counterpoint norms. For
those that aren't music theory literate and don't know what the fuck I'm
talking about I might bother to explain it in an upcoming post if I
wake up one day feeling super fucking nerdy. In the meantime know that
every time I hear suspended harmony used in a k-pop song I nearly jizz
myself and each year there's usually one or two really awesome
k-pop songs that exploit suspended harmony to some extent (and usually
by MBK), but rarely any more than that. I'll probably get a million
questions on ask.fm related to this, to which my reply is - I'll
probably post about it more one day when I run out of other blogging
ideas and could actually be fucked, until then don't interrupt my
fapping rhythm with questions about this thanks.

As the only person alive who has heard Dr. Dre's Detox,
AOA's Jimin possesses the secret rap knowledge that could save k-pop
and in fact all music everywhere. Every time Jimin says "Hey!" on a
track or some other clunky line of English, k-pop's future gets just
that little bit hotter, fresher and flyer. It also annoys a lot of people, which is fantastic. However even these days with Jimin currently working at full capacity with both AOA and rap side projects,
her collective output accounts for a tiny minority of all k-pop music.
FNC needs to start outsourcing Jimin's trademark vocals to other
companies and besides lifting the quality bar and annoying lots of
people who undoubtedly deserve to be annoyed, it'll be a great little
earner - who wouldn't pay dearly for a guest spot from the hip-hop
master?

YEAST and FELCH is the only that is keeping KPOP from becoming the dystopian music industry that is JPOP. J-Urban and Rap died thanks to the greedy jew sale tactics employed by Johhnny Entertainment and AkiP.

I am no fanboy, just someone who have seen enough of the JPOP industry to realize that KPOP better never go full retard like JPOP. Seriously, Yoloswag is the only thing that keeps KPOP from being a hellish snoozefest.

Actually sometimes I wish kpop took inspiration from their japanese counterparts to try some more "risky" concept once in a while. Such as this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXy7fAaDvyo or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjVT-jsiPnw or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOin4bwUQ5c and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e_IiKlE3w4 or even this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzvwlrLkQIs . These are all some of the most popular idol groups : no Yolo$wag detected.

I'm sorry for infesting your post with crappy jpop Kpopalypse :D (I really like all of these songs, though)

I'm a bit ashamed of this, but i have grown up to like all the chipmunk jimin noises. It went from annoying, not that bad at least it's unique for them to actually digging this parts. A complete song of this would be considered torture under the geneva convention but some parts are alright. Am i crazy, doctor?